Muppet Mind Control

OK - lets try this again. Since the Internet lost my last post, this will be a dual post day.

I have a theory. The evil geniuses behind Sesame Street have harnessed a complicated mind control technique. The other day, Nathan and I were watching Sesame Street. OK, OK: I was watching Sesame Street and Nathan was playing with his toys. Every now and then, he would look at the TV for a little bit, but it was no big deal. We watched scenes with Big Bird (who is in serious need of some therapy), Grover, and Cookie Monster with no reaction. Then, with 20 minutes left in the show, it was time for Elmo's World [shudder]. For those that don't watch Sesame Street anymore, this is the way they waste the last 20 minutes of the show. Elmo lives in this little world drawn in crayon where he talks to the furniture and his goldfish (fake furniture, real goldfish). Its basically a show within the show. It opens with a very annoying song, of course. Each day, Elmo is "thinking" about a different subject, like "bugs" or "exercise." For 20 minutes, Elmo talks to his furniture about goldfish, the audience, kids, babies, a mime, and occasionally another muppet about the topic. Then, it all ends with another highly annoying song. This is perhaps the worst part. The opening song is awful, but at least original. The ending song is ALWAYS the tune of "Jingle Bells," but the words are replaced by the topic of the day. So imagine Jingle Bells played on a toy piano in combination with an annoying high-pitched voice singing "Bugs bugs bugs; bugs bugs bugs, bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs..." etc. Pure torture.

So the point of this story is this: As soon as Elmo appeared on the screen singing his first annoying song, Nathan was transfixed, and started laughing like a madman. This held his attention for a long time before he started playing again, and is consistently his favorite part of the show. Here's the rest of my theory: the evil geniuses know that parents HATE Elmo, and are using subliminal (or subliminible, depending on your political leanings) to make kids love him. Here's the genius, though - they do this in such a way that adults are immune to the mind control. I think the key is in that annoying voice Elmo has - it must have some frequency that only kids can hear. I'll keep an eye on the dog and see how she responds to Elmo this week.

In other muppet related news, Cookie Monster ate no cookies during the two episodes I watched last week. He did, however, pretend that the letter of the day was a cookie, and he ate that. Somehow, it just isn't the same.